3of 8Hank Schyma, musician who performs as Pecos Hank, and also a storm chaser and snake enthusiast.Photo: Jay Dryden

4of 8Hank Schyma, musician who performs as Pecos Hank, and also a storm chaser and snake enthusiast.Photo: Jay Dryden

5of 8In this May 31, 2013 file photo a tornado forms near Banner Road and Praire Circle in El Reno, Okla. The National Weather Service says the deadly tornado that struck near Oklahoma City was another top-of-the-scale EF5 that packed winds reaching 295 mph. The weather service also says the twister's 2.6-mile width is the widest ever recorded. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams, File)Photo: Alonzo Adams, FRE

6of 8In this May 31, 2013 file photo, a tornado forms near Banner Road and Praire Circle in El Reno, Okla. Longtime storm chasers Tim Samaras, his son Paul and colleague Carl Young were killed Friday when a powerful tornado near El Reno, Okla., turned on them as they were conducting research. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams, File)Photo: Alonzo Adams, FRE

8of 8A storm develops just before it produced a tornado near El Reno Okla. just south of Interstate 40 on Friday May 31, 2013. Several tornadoes in the area caused damage and injuries. (AP Photo/The World-Herald, Chris Machian) MAGS OUT; ALL NEBRASKA LOCAL BROADCAST TV OUTPhoto: Chris Machian, MBI

Nature doesn't show the town of El Reno in central Oklahoma much kindness: It endures tornadoes, flooding and ice storms.

Hank Schyma, a Houston singer-songwriter, storm chaser, photographer and snake enthusiast, named his new album "El Reno Blues." Schyma, who released the record under the name Pecos Hank, was in El Reno in 2011 when an EF5 tornado, the highest on the enhanced Fujita ranking scale, formed there.

"When it first touched down, it just swallowed this 18-wheeler on the outskirts of town," he recalls. "I was just watching, horrified. It sounds clichéd, but with an EF5, it feels like the whole sky is going to swallow up everything. I drove up to this truck. The paint was sand-blasted off. The windows were blown out. And this guy's head popped up. He looked at me and smiled and said, 'Well, that was close.' And at that moment, I saw the happiest happy you could see. He'd been inside this monster and lived.

"That ended up in the song. People think those people in El Reno are crazy for living there. They're not. They have this great nonmaterialistic attitude where the things that really matter are your family."

Schyma spends three months a year in his car en route to places like El Reno; he recently racked up 50,000 miles on the road. During this solitary time, he cultivates songs and dictates them into his iPhone. Typically, he'd steer songs toward his glam-influenced rock band the Southern Backtones. But his new tunes have a spaciousness and rely on evocative sounds, like the gypsy swing of a violin and heavy guitar reverb that felt like an old Western soundtrack

"I wanted it to sound like West Texas," Schyma, 43, says.

His songs reflect his affinity for storms. Schyma grew up intrigued by Houston's volatile weather, but a childhood drive in Minnesota had a particular impact on him. A blue sky gave way to black; he remembers the storm looking like a mountain. He asked his mother what was happening. "She turned to me and said, 'It's hell,' " he says. "I'd never heard her say anything like that. I later realized she said, 'hail,' but I remember it making an impression. Why were we driving toward it?

"That planted this sense of darkness and excitement."

Schyma's photographs and video have appeared on local news channels as well as the Weather Channel and Discovery Channel. He calls storm chasing "the most fun thing I've ever done.

"It just makes everything else seem lame. Big, giant shows aren't as exciting. It touches on something instinctive, this idea of hunting. When I go out, I tell my wife I'm off to hunt dragons."

Now on a dragon-hunting break, Schyma is performing both at home and outside of Houston. The road trips provide him the chance to work on another of his pursuits: finding and photographing every species of snake in the United States. "This year hasn't been great," he says. "I only got one, which is not enough to get the job done. I need to get more like 10 a year."

The beautiful "El Reno Blues" unfolds patiently with an emphasis on mood; it plays like a nighttime drive toward a strange town. Jo Bird's viola greatly contributes to the feeling, as does Todd Sommer's percussion, which is understated yet ominous. Additional strings provide drama to "Monster Show," an effective instrumental that announces the album's second half.

"I've never really had an aim with any recording," Schyma says. "My songs have always been all over the map. But this one was recorded fast in a short amount of time. I guess that gave the songs a fluid feel.

"And we got to record it in the middle of the night. I'd never gotten to do that before. It really made everything come together."

Andrew Dansby covers music and other entertainment, both local and national, for the Houston Chronicle, 29-95.com and chron.com. He previously assisted the editor for George R.R. Martin, author of "Game of Thrones" and later worked on three "major" motion pictures you've never seen. That short spell in the film business nudged him into writing, first as a freelancer and later with Rolling Stone. He came to the Chronicle in 2004 as an entertainment editor and has since moved to writing full time.